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About WFIFTY8 at Columbus Circle, 426 West 58th Street
The Time-Warner Center complex that opened in 2004 and replaced the New York Coliseum on the west side of Columbus Circle not only added a major mixed-use, twin-towered skyscraper to midtown, anchoring the southwest corner of Central Park, but also spurred other development in the area.
This very handsome but relatively small project at 426 West 58th Street is dwarfed, of course, by the huge Time-Warner project, a block away, which also includes a shopping mall, luxury condominiums, a Mandarin Hotel and facilities for CNN. But size does not appeal to everyone and this project combines an old, 5-story, limestone-clad, telephone exchange office building with six new “contemporary” floors and the 16 apartments offer loft-style spaces with traditional “uptown” amenities. There are several duplex units and penthouses have terraces.
The original Neo-Italian-Renaissance-style structure will have 11 apartments ranging in size from 1,800 to 2,700 square feet and the six-story addition will have five apartments ranging in size from 2,600 to 3,700 square feet.
Elad Properties is the developer. It has built or converted 11 other condominium projects in Manhattan with a total of approximately 500 units. Initial pricing at West 58, as this project is known, was set at $1,400,000 to $5,000,000, according to Miki Naftali, the president of Elad Properties.
Elad bought the property from the Bureau of Jewish Education in 2003 for $7,500,000. The bureau had occupied the building, which has a central courtyard, for about 40 years.
Cetra/Ruddy is the design firm that did the conversion. In a March 12, 2004 article in The New York Times Rachelle Garbarine quoted Nancy Ruddy, a principal of Cetra/Ruddy, as remarking that the building had 24-inch thick masonry walls and interior cast iron columns.
The design of the addition is clad in clear and frosted glass, metal panels and stainless steel and Ms. Ruddy suggested that the addition will look as though it is resting lightly on the older structure, adding that the addition will be crowned with a “modern interpretation of a cornice that respects the architectural order established by the existing building.”
The kitchens include a 34-bottle wine cooler, granite countertops, and sleek stainless steel appliances.
The building has a concierge and a large and handsome lobby.
There is extremely excellent public transportation in this area as well as considerable traffic, which is relieved by the proximity of Central Park. The area, which is only a few blocks south of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, abounds in interesting projects in addition to the Time Warner Center. A low-rise building on the southwest corner of Eighth Avenue at 58th Street is one of the city’s nicer “modern” buildings with an angled element slicing through it and it is across from the fine former Huntington Hartford Gallery of Modern Art designed by Edward Durell Stone on the south side of Columbus Circle. Donald Trump’s hotel and condominium tower designed by Philip Johnson on the north side of the circle, and Davis Brody & Associates fine green apartment tower is around the corner on 57th Street at Eighth Avenue, across 57th Street from the new headquarters of the Hearst Corporation designed by Norman Foster. In addition, the quite spectacular interiors of the Hudson Hotel are just down the street on the other side of Ninth Avenue.
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